Black Lives Matter St. Paul’s Marathon protest plans are really pissing people off

When the Facebook invites for #BlackMarathon went out last week, no explanation was necessary. Boyd Park in St. Paul, Sunday at 10. Be there or be square. Black Lives Matter is going to take on the Twin Cities Marathon.

What exactly will they be doing? Gathering near the finish line and blocking runners from reaching it.

Why are they doing that? More awareness raising. Because over the past year a lot of black people have been gunned down by cops around the country, and the best way to make sure everyone remembers is to disrupt every major community event going down in the cities.

If runners complain, it means they care more about their own frivolous finish times than black lives.

Or so the logic goes.

Black Lives Matter St. Paul has had a rocking summer of rapid-fire protests. First there was the march on the State Fair, which caught much flak after people got confused and indignant about why the fair was being singled out. (At the time, the preferred retort was that white people cared more about corn dogs than black lives.)

Then there was the march on Gov. Mark Dayton’s mansion because he suggested that BLM should have tried to work with the fair on increasing diversity among its vendors months in advance.

That was followed by the Vikings home opener light rail shutdown, which was in response to the police takedown of 17-year-old Marcus Abrams at the Lexington station in St. Paul. Abrams, who has autism, suffered a seizure in the process of being arrested. Footage from that incident isn’t available to the public yet, so no one can say exactly what went wrong.

So here we go again with the Marathon, and people are clearly agitated. Most tweets are divided between bitter naysayers with protest fatigue and dogmatic defenders of anything labeled "black lives matter."

If this true, I hope the runners throw some elbows. Black Lives Matter Plans Protest At Twin Cities Marathon http://t.co/Kn8bsgQNzX